Review: My name is A by Anonymous - 2011

My name is A by Anonymous

Director: Bonéshin

2011

Drama/Thriller

Inspired by true events. A nine year old girl disappears and is later found murdered. The movie exploits the events leading up to the death of the girl, why did it happen? What lies beneath? Was the parenting of the young perpetrators to blame or was it their need to be seen. Are they even an invention of the imagination and not real? There are no easy answers in this movie, there’s only angst and death!

This is a strange movie, no doubt about it! And I can’t say that everyone will like it. Not that everyone will dislike it either but it is kind of hard to watch and it's very provocative! It’s inspired by a true crime, a murder of a 9 year old girl in 2009. I don’t know anything about the case at all but I’ve learned over the years that “inspired by” mean almost nothing and don’t mean there are any historic facts in it at all. If may be different with independent productions such as this but I wouldn’t bet on it.

I get the impression that the real case wasn’t really solved or at least had some doubts left in it. At least this movie has that. The story isn’t told in chronological order and it’s not even clear if all the characters exist or if they’re just the product on the imagination of the perpetrator. Even more interesting is what lies beneath, is it a case of child abuse, insect, or just plain old teenage angst? I can’t really tell, but the background is certainly not a happy one!

More or less the whole movie tries to set an emotion. The plot is very vague and kind of fragmented which forces the viewer to make decisions about what’s really happening. The value of interpretations is very high. I love movies like this that makes you think. They may not be as entertaining as a brain dead action film but the overall enjoyment and intellectual gain from them is outstanding.

It’s filmed like the characters shoots the film themselves by using cell phones. Well, not all the time maybe; and I would have to say that the quality of the film exceeds that of cell phones too. But it is dirty and scratched (which would indicate film rather than a digital cell phone really, but I didn’t think about that until just now) and adds to the realism of the acting. And the acting is really good! It’s hard to tell that it's actually actors playing parts and that’s about as good as it gets! It’s a disturbing, strong movie about angst. At least it is for me, the murder is just a subplot which might help to sell this film to the audience.